Smyrna Council looks to start fund for vacant buildings

Tuesday

Jul 17, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 17, 2012 at 5:13 PM

The Smyrna Town Council didn’t have a shortage of items to discuss Monday at their meeting, but one item under new business touched on a heavily discussed topic from the July 2 meeting — the vacant building registration fee.

Jennifer Dailey, reporter

The Smyrna Town Council didn’t have a shortage of items to discuss Monday at their meeting, but one item under new business touched on a heavily discussed topic from the July 2 meeting — the vacant building registration fee.

Council passed the first reading of an ordinance in which the town will deposit fees and fines generated from the vacant building registration fee into a fund for the repair or demolition of vacant and dangerous buildings when property owners fail to take remedial actions.

The topic of the registration fee came up while discussing vacant buildings on Smyrna-Clayton Boulevard at the last council meeting.

Earlier in the meeting, town attorney Terry Jaywork informed council that the town had received a check for $51,000 from the sale of a property that had been in poor condition years ago that the town helped fix. The money also included payment of back taxes.

Should council eventually pass the ordinance, all funds recovered from these actions should be put in the special fund until the amount exceeds $50,000.

Councilman Bob Johnson did note that if this fund is eventually set up that the town would need to create a line item in the general fund. "Once the money is in the general fund, it can be put into the special fund," Johnson said, "This way it's properly accounted for."

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